Page 85 of Death at the Dower House
I had no idea, of course. I was running blind, on instinct. If Christopher wasn’t upstairs, he had to be down here, and—
There was a breeze coming from somewhere. I could feel it move the soft ends of my bob against my cheeks, and it also ran across the soft silk of my pyjamas and rustled the fabric.
I headed towards where I thought it came from—the open door to the parlor—but before I could take make it past the doorway, a wordless bellow came from upstairs.
“Francis!” Crispin spun on his heel, going back up the stairs again two at a time, abandoning me.
I barely hesitated at all—half a second, perhaps, with a glance toward the parlor door—before I ran back up the stairs towards Francis’s voice. By now, it had resolved itself into words, some of which I recognized (and thought perhaps I’d rather I hadn’t, because they were blisteringly profane) and some I’d never heard before. Interspersed with the curses was Christopher’s name. “Come on, Kit. Wake up! Wake up!”
My legs being shorter, it took me longer than it took Crispin to make it back up to the first floor. He took the stairs two at a time while I had to settle for stepping on each one.
I got to the landing in time to see the edge of his pyjama legs flick around the corner into their shared room, across the landing from Lady Peckham’s closed and locked door.
It was also where Francis’s voice came from, and I scurried after them both. I had to push Constance out of the way to do it. There was very little left of Lady Laetitia’s tantrum, just some soft sniffles and her brother’s soothing tones from behind the half-open door to her room, so perhaps Constance felt she could now devote herself to the next cataclysm.
Or not cataclysm. Dear God, no more cataclysms. No more problems of any kind.
I wasn’t even aware I was praying, sending mostly wordless requests and desperation ahead of me as I burst into the room the three Astleys had shared for the past two nights.
Christopher had to be all right. He had to be. Please, God, let him simply be asleep, not dead, and that was the reason Francis couldn’t raise him.
Asleep. Not dead.
Not Christopher.
The room was larger than the one I had shared with Constance, and it had a double bed as well as a settee along one wall that was made up with what was now a rumpled pile of pillows and blankets, some of them dragging on the floor. One side of the bed was empty, with the counterpane thrown back. Whoever had been sleeping there must have tossed off the covers and run onto the landing with the rest of us when Lady Laetitia started screaming. So, clearly, had whoever had been sleeping on the settee.
Crispin on the settee and the two Astley brothers in the bed, I surmised, or perhaps Francis, the former soldier, had assured his little brother and his much more delicate cousin that he’d slept in worse places in his time, and he had made himself comfortable on the settee while they shared the bed.
It didn’t matter, anyway. Just the useless calculations my mind made to keep itself busy so I didn’t have to focus on what was going on on the other side of the bed.
Francis and Crispin were both standing there.
Or perhaps that gives a much too peaceful picture of what was going on. Francis had ripped the blankets off his brother, and was busy slapping him across the face and yelling at him. “Wake up, Christopher! Come on, brother. Shake it off and open your eyes. Talk to me. Kit!”
He was clearly frantic, his voice shaking, and I could see tears on his cheeks. The faint light from the window reflected in them.
Crispin, meanwhile, was doing his best to stop Francis from actually hurting Christopher. He was clutching at Francis, trying to drag him back from the bed. “Easy, Francis. Take it easy.”
I choked back a sob. If Crispin was trying to stop Francis from hurting Christopher, that must mean that hurting Christopher was possible. Christopher must be alive. Although from where I stood, he didn’t look as if he were. He was as unresponsive as a rag doll as Francis shook him. His head lolled, his arms flopped, his wrists hung limp. There wasn’t a sound or a movement out of him.
But Crispin was closer to them both than I was, and perhaps he had seen something I hadn’t.
Please let Christopher still be alive. Please let him be alive.
“Dear God,” Constance whispered behind me, “what’s happened?”
“Light,” I told her hoarsely. “We need light!”
She ran for the nearest lamp and flicked it. Nothing resulted, of course. I could have told her that. The lights seemed to be out on the entire first floor. Perhaps in the entire house.
I dragged my mind into coherence, even if just for a single thought. It felt like it took untold effort. “Main fuse panel?”
Constance looked blank for a second, and then her eyes sharpened. “Box room under the stairs.”
“Can you—?”
She sent one agonized look Francis’s way, and then she whirled away to hurry out of the room, white gown fluttering. I turned back to the scene at the bed.
